don’t think there’s a single straight guy in the universe whose initial reaction to seeing their girlfriend wearing this is to laugh,’ Jenny clucked, pulling my bag from my shoulder and hurrying me into getting changed. ‘They’d strike him off the hetero register.’
Shedding my New York winter layers in the bathroom of someone else’s swanky Tribeca duplex, I slithered into the outfit and thanked the Lord that I was wearing decent knickers since everyone and their mother was going to be able to see them for the next three hours. With a gleeful grin, Jenny held out her black patent Louboutins and a pair of fishnet hold-ups.
‘None of the other girls are wearing Louboutins,’ she said as I baulked. ‘Loubous totally class this shit up.’
‘It’s not the shoes so much as the stockings,’ I grumbled, snatching them and sitting on the edge of the bath to put them on. ‘In for a penny … Classy my arse.’
Ooh, bugger me that bath was cold.
‘Who’s actually going to be at this thing?’ I asked. I just needed reassuring that it wasn’t going to be my mum, my ex-boyfriend, every boss I’d ever had and my year nine maths teacher. Because in my head …
‘Just fashion assholes,’ she said, flipping her hand dismissively. ‘Erin is trying to get this guy to give us his account. He runs some online boutique or something, and he said if we pull off his Christmas party, we’ll get his PR business. Between you and me, I think he’s kind of a pervert.’
‘You don’t say.’ I looked down at my outfit. Low at the top, short at the bottom, tight in the everywhere. I wanted to take a photo and text it to Lawrence the Lawyer with the caption ‘extraordinary enough for you?’. Except he’d probably just reply ‘no’.
‘You should wear it home and then ask Alex what he thinks about marrying you,’ Jenny said, carefully rolling my non-hooker wear and stashing it in a garment bag. ‘Pretty sure you’d get the answer you’re looking for.’
‘I thought you were going to marry me?’ I asked, taking a regrettable look in the bathroom mirror. The black eyeliner and cherry-tinted lip gloss I’d put on at home had seemed simple and classic with my jeans. Now I looked like a shop-worn Playboy bunny. Hef would take one look and banish me from the Mansion. Could there be anything more damaging to your self-esteem than being dismissed by a jilted octogenarian?
‘I’d totally hit that,’ Jenny said, leaning her chin on my shoulder and smiling at our reflections. It wasn’t a picture I was comfortable with, Louboutins or no Louboutins.
‘Good, because I’m officially taking the whole visa marriage thing off the table.’ I rested my head on hers. ‘I’m going to find another way. But I’m staying, don’t worry.’
‘I think you need to convince yourself, not me,’ she said, kissing me on the cheek and slapping me on the arse. ‘I believe you.’
It was a good thing one of us did.
With a brave face and a bare arse, I crept out of the bathroom and into the party. People were already starting to arrive, giving me very little time to scoot into the kitchen and surreptitiously neck a glass of champagne. How was I supposed to walk around the room wearing this? Catching a glimpse of my backside in the microwave window only made me feel worse. Not only because it wasn’t the most flattering angle, but also because the only thing reflected in my microwave was the cheese from last night’s pizza. For a split second I considered legging it for the lift before any more people arrived, but I didn’t. Because Jenny actually looked very nervous. Because I’d made a promise. And because I didn’t know where she’d hidden my coat. So instead of dashing for the streets, I picked up a tray of champagne, tried to forget the fact that my mum still served me a half-full cup of tea because ‘I couldn’t be trusted’ and headed for the living room. While I wasn’t quite so keen for them to get a look at me, I was looking forward to seeing what a ‘fashion asshole’ looked like.
‘Oh. My. God.’
One step into the party.
One step straight back into the kitchen.
Apparently ‘fashion assholes’ looked like Cici Spencer.
Tall, blonde and the devil incarnate, this was not good. The last time I’d set eyes on Cici, she was howling with rage and drenched in iced coffee. Because I’d thrown it at her. Cici was the assistant of my former editor at The Look magazine and had made ruining my life her pet project. She hadn’t quite managed total destruction at the time, but she did successfully destroy my entire wardrobe. Oh, and made sure I lost my job, since she was the godforsaken hell spawn of the magazine’s owner. It was ironic that a more appropriate name for Cici also started with a ‘C’, but my mother would never forgive me if I used it in public.
‘Oh my God, Angela.’ Cici tottered over, holding one very skinny hand to her flat chest, laughing with delight as though we were old sorority sisters. ‘Look at you!’
I was frozen to the spot. Yes. Look at me. There she was in a floor-length, one-shouldered red gown, her hair sweeping down the other shoulder in an icy cascade of blonde curls with a slash of dress-matching lipstick on her perfectly porcelain face. And there I was, in my cheap, shiny, wished-it-was-Ann-Summers French maid’s costume with air-dried hair and a dab of L’Oréal lip gloss. Sigh. I really didn’t have anything to say to her.
Luckily, Cici had lots to say to me.
‘This is amazing.’ I felt a very light, very evil hand on my shoulder. ‘I was just thinking about you the other day. I was updating Mary’s holiday card list.’
‘Oh.’
‘I cut you.’
‘Right.’
I assumed she was saying I wasn’t getting a Christmas card, but if she’d meant an actual physical slashing, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
‘Figured you would have left by now. Like, run away back to England or something?’
‘Um-hmm.’
‘Because you don’t have a job?’
‘Gotcha.’
‘Because we fired you?’
Not running away five minutes ago was turning out to be a really bad idea. ‘But look at you,’ Cici gushed. A small crowd of her cronies had gathered around to watch the entertainment. ‘You are working. As a waitress. Dressed like a hooker.’
The best part was, it was all true.
But I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of me going the full Charlie Sheen, even if the idea of throwing an entire tray of Cristal in her face before beating her to death with the tray was very tempting. It was Christmas, after all, and I really didn’t want Jenny to get fired. Or to go to prison. I wasn’t sure if New York had the death penalty or not, let alone whether they served Christmas dinner inside. That said, I would have a good defence. ‘But your honour, she was a massive bitch’ would work, surely? No, I had to take the high ground. I had to be the bigger person. And I hated that.
‘Hi.’ I reset my expression and smiled. If looks could kill, it wouldn’t have even tickled. Butter would’ve actually chilled while I looked at it. ‘Champagne?’
‘What did you do to it?’ She reluctantly took one of my glasses, sniffing it with suspicion.
‘Oh, Cici.’ I attempted to laugh, but it may or may not have come out slightly more like a sob. ‘It’s just champagne. Enjoy your evening.’
Feeling my restraint starting to waver, I turned carefully on my borrowed heel, making sure not to twist my knackered knee, and headed back towards the kitchen, passing another French maid on the way out. She gave me a supportive grimace and I nodded in return. Solidarity, sister.
Once the door was closed and I was safely away from Cici and all of Satan’s little helpers, I let out what I hoped was a relatively controlled